Southern XC Round 6 - Bordon, Hampshire

The Indian summer had arrived and arriving at Bordon the sun was out and the temperature a pleasant 19 degrees. Ironically it was one of the few events this year when the huge tarmaced Tank standing ground that is synonymous with Bordon was not actually needed (it would have been great if the snow blighted round back in April could have had that hardstanding)

The arena area was well laid out, there was music and good commentary and despite the bad weather throughout the year, the Southern XC events have been consistent in being well organised, with good arena areas and organised by passionate and caring bikers. A big well done to the organisers who in many ways showed the organisers of some of the ‘bigger’ events how things could be done.

With series positions up for grabs two of the Orange Monkey team had travelled to Bordon and the series lived up to it’s promise with the Youth series title coming down to the wire. Ben Roff and Stephen James were locked on points and even a countback would not separate them. This was to be a sudden death play off.

Right from the start, the Orange Monkeys were prominent with Monkey’s Ben Roff leading Stephen James into the first corner with Orange Monkey third right on his wheel through Nat Jarvis. These three changed positions through much of the first lap over this interesting, fast and undulating course, until about two thirds of the way round Ben and Stephen managed a break and put a gap on Nat and 4th placed rider Daniel Bryant.

At the end of the first lap Stephen and Ben were locked wheel to wheel and continued to swap the lead of the race until halfway round the final lap. Meanwhile Daniel Bryant and Nat Jarvis were battling together for 3rd place, and this battle continued until some inconsiderate riding from people on practice laps, and even dog walkers caused Nat to lose ground on Daniel, leaving Nat to finish 4th, happy with his ride but angry at the inconsiderate and even offensive behaviour of non competing riders on the course.

Ben and Stephen continued to battle until midway through the final lap when Stephen put in a big attack and was able to hold off the attempts of Ben to get back on his wheel to take the win. With that Stephen James took the overall series title and Ben had to settle for second place overall, the strong final ride from Nat Jarvis moved him up to 4th overall rounding off a good series and a strong season for the Orange Monkey Youth squad.